Reese's Bride. Kat Martin

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СКАЧАТЬ against her skin and her stomach rolled with nausea.

      “You don’t want me to leave,” he said, his voice husky. “You need me, Elizabeth. You need what I can give you.”

      Her stomach churned. “I’ll scream. If you don’t leave this minute, I swear I shall scream the house down.”

      Mason laughed softly. In the light of the lamp on the bedside table, his eyes glinted with sexual heat. “Perhaps the time is not yet right. Soon though. Soon I’ll come and you will welcome me, Elizabeth. You won’t have any other choice.”

      You won’t have any other choice. Dear God, the words rang with a certainty that made the hair rise at the back of her neck. “Get out!”

      Mason just smiled. “Sleep well, my dear. I shall see you in the morning.”

      Elizabeth stood frozen as he left the bedroom and quietly closed the door. Her head throbbed and the dizziness had returned. Sinking back down on the stool, she fought to steady herself and clear her head. She thought of Jared and the danger he was in and her eyes filled with tears.

      She wasn’t safe in the house anymore and neither was her son. The time had come. She had to leave.

      Ignoring the pounding in her skull, summoning her strength, as well as a shot of courage, she rose from the stool and hurried toward the bellpull to ring for Sophie, her ladies’ maid. A search beneath the bed made her nauseous, but yielded a heavy leather satchel she hefted up on the feather mattress.

      A sleepy-eyed Sophie, dark hair sticking out all over her head, walked into the bedroom yawning. “You rang for me, my lady?”

      “I need your help, Sophie. I’m leaving.”

      The girl’s green eyes widened. “Now? It’s the middle of the night, my lady.”

      “I need you to go upstairs and wake Mrs. Garvey. Tell her to get dressed. Tell her we are leaving straightaway and she needs to pack a bag for herself and one for Jared. Tell her to meet me downstairs at the door leading out to the carriage house.”

      Beginning to pick up on Elizabeth’s urgency, Sophie straightened. “As you wish, my lady.”

      “As soon as you’ve finished, go out to the stable and tell Mr. Hobbs to ready my carriage—the small one. Tell him not to come round front. Tell him I’ll come to him where he is.”

      Sophie whirled to leave.

      “And don’t tell anyone else I’m going.”

      The little maid understood. Though she had never said so, she didn’t like Mason Holloway, either. She bobbed a curtsey and rushed out the door.

      Ignoring a wave of dizziness, Elizabeth returned to her packing. By the time Sophie returned, she was dressed in a simple black woolen gown, her hair pulled into a tight chignon at the back of her neck, a crisp black bonnet tied beneath her chin.

      “I need help with the last of the buttons,” she said to her maid, turning her back so that Sophie could do them up. As soon as the task was completed, Elizabeth grabbed her black wool cloak off the hook beside the door and whirled it round her shoulders. She swayed a little with the effort.

      Sophie rushed forward, alarmed. “My lady!”

      “I’m all right. Just promise you will keep silent until morning.”

      “Of course. You can trust me, my lady. Please be careful.”

      Elizabeth smiled, grateful for the young girl’s loyalty. “I’ll be careful.”

      Heading down the servants’ stairs, satchel in hand, it didn’t take long to reach the door leading out to the stable. Holding two small bags, Mrs. Garvey stood next to Jared, who looked up at Elizabeth with big, worried brown eyes.

      “Where are we going, Mama?”

      Until that very moment, she hadn’t been completely certain. Now she looked at her son, felt a rush of dizziness, and knew what she had to do.

      “To see an old friend,” she said, and dear God, she prayed that somewhere in the darkest part of his heart, he would find that in some small measure, it was still true.

       Three

      Reese awakened from sleep to a banging at his door. Frowning, he swung his legs to the side of the high four-poster bed and shoved himself to his feet. The pounding started again as he dragged on his dark blue silk dressing gown.

      Grumbling, he grabbed his cane, crossed the bedroom and jerked open the door to find Timothy Daniels standing in the hallway.

      “For God’s sake, man, what is it? Keep that up and you’ll wake the whole house.”

      Timothy’s flaming red hair glinted in the light of the whale oil lamp he held in his hand. “It’s an emergency, sir. There’s a woman. She’s downstairs, sir. She says she needs to speak to you. She says the matter is urgent.”

      “It is well past midnight. Why the devil would a woman wish to see me at this bloody hour of the night?”

      “Can’t say, sir. But she’s here with her son and she seems overly distressed.”

      Apprehension trickled down his spine. He had seen Elizabeth and her son two days ago. Surely this had nothing to do with her. Then again, he had never been a man who believed in coincidence. “Tell her I’ll be down as soon as I can put on some clothes.”

      “Aye, sir.”

      Timothy disappeared and Reese made his way over to the wardrobe. Unconsciously rubbing his leg, he jerked out a pair of black trousers and a white lawn shirt, sat down and pulled them on. As he tucked in his shirt, pain shot down his leg. Since he’d taken a chunk of grapeshot at Inkerman, it was stiff, but not completely. Once he began to walk on it, it usually loosened up. At this hour the blasted thing felt like a lead rod connected to his body.

      Reese ignored it. As soon as he was dressed, he headed downstairs, wondering what sort of problem awaited him at this hour of the night.

      Leaning on his cane, he took the stairs as fast as he could, reached the bottom, and looked up to find his tall, skinny, very dignified butler standing next to a woman dressed in black.

      Time seemed to slow. He knew those finely etched features, the pale skin and raven-black hair, the perfectly shaped eyebrows and lips the color of roses. Images assailed him. Elizabeth in the garden of her home, laughing as she raced him to the gazebo. Elizabeth in his arms as they whirled around the ballroom. Elizabeth out on the terrace, her fingers sliding through his hair, her mouth soft and welcoming under his.

      He straightened, met her gaze squarely. “You are not welcome here.”

      She was trembling, he saw as she walked toward him, her movements as graceful and feminine as he recalled, a small woman, though she had never seemed so. “I must speak to you, my lord. It is urgent.”

      He wasn’t used to the title. Major suited him far more, and it jarred him a little. He might have told her he had no time for a woman of such low character as she, but then he saw that she wasn’t СКАЧАТЬ